Tag: options

Happiness and Fulfillment in Retirement

In the previous post I explored aging and retirement planning.  In that post I drew on the work of Bec Wilson, creator of the Epic Retirement Flagship Course and the author of the book, How to have an Epic Retirement.  In the current post, I want to focus on Bec’s discussion of happiness and fulfillment in retirement while drawing on the writings on the topic by other authors.  At the outset, Bec debunks the image of a retired person who is spending their days in a lazy chair on the beach while drinking wine – research highlights the fact that this portrayal is a recipe for boredom and a shortened life span.

Ways to achieve happiness and fulfillment in retirement

Bec offers a series of suggestions for how we might go about achieving these retirement goals:

Examining your personal stories for sources of happiness and fulfillment

In her Epic Retirement Workbook (that accompanies the Course), Bec offers a way to examine our personal stories including recording our key experiences and challenges, triumphs and passions.  She also offers some probing questions to identify themes in our responses such as resilience, creativity, and sources of happiness.  This approach to recording personal stories is consistent with the research supporting the use of storytelling to manage life transitions.  Such storytelling is often described as narrative therapy – an emerging area for university-level study.

Identifying your purpose and source of happiness by exploring your curiosity

Bec’s Workbook has a series of questions designed to elicit your level of curiosity about your future options, friendships, challenging pursuits, and what you might do with your time in retirement.  She maintains that without a degree of curiosity in your retirement years, “you might find yourself isolated, bored and even becoming stale”.    Frank Ostaseski, author of The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully, encourages us to cultivate openness and curiosity to achieve intimacy with ourselves, live life fully, develop self-forgiveness and “a deep sense of belonging”.

Creating meaning in your life as a retiree

Bec discusses various ways to create meaning because research confirms that a meaningful life can lead to happiness and a sense of fulfillment.  She encourages retirees to volunteer to contribute to a cause beyond ourselves and lists multiple arenas in which to volunteer, including volunteering for charity shops, aged care residents and sporting clubs.  A psychologically-rich life can generate a meaningful life and a sense of fulfillment. Pursuits such as the following can create meaning in our retirement years:

  • Collaborating with others in learning
  • Exploring part-time work options
  • Pursuing new sporting challenges and social relationships
  • Expressing gratitude and kindness which are contagious and cultivate health and happiness in others and ourselves.
Identifying your skills and strengths to develop your sense of purpose

Bec suggests that developing a happy and fulfilling life as a retiree depends largely on having a sense of purpose.  She draws on the work of Richard Leider and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to maintain that developing a sense of purpose involves employing your skills and strengths in areas that you are passionate about, are congruent with your values and contribute to something beyond yourself (such as a charity or other  organisation pursuing social goals).  In her Workbook, Bec offers a columnar chart to assist us to identify the relationships amongst our skills, passions, values and purpose.

Exploring your courage

Bec points out that it takes courage to move beyond our comfort zone, to pursue “endings” to the way we do things and to try new things that are challenging.  She encourages us to tell ourselves the truth about our life, our happiness and sense of fulfillment; to make difficult decisions that will present challenges to our self-concept and our comfort zone; to make mistakes as we try out new things; to dream big; and to say ‘no” or “yes” when it is appropriate for self-preservation or to achieve our potential.

Engaging in epic pursuits

Bec draws on research to show that to achieve an “engaged, curious and happy life” as a retiree we need to adopt three or more pursuits  that we enjoy and that ideally engage us physically, cognitively and socially.  To this end, she lists (on pages 280-281 of her 2025 Book) epic pursuits that “active and engaged retirees” have adopted to pursue their passions.  This can serve as a  stimulus and checklist to help us to identify epic pursuits that might interest us.  Home swapping can also bring excitement and a change of location (either domestically or overseas).

Exploring different types of work that may be compatible with semi-retirement

Bec suggests that this work could provide supplementary income and draw on existing knowledge and skills (such as lecturing, tutoring, consulting or training) or , alternatively, provide the opportunity to learn new skills (such as starting a small business built on a hobby or a special interest area).   Her other suggestions include roles such as driving for rideshare services such as Uber, baby-sitting, pet-sitting, carer/helper, or landlord.  The opportunities are numerous and include having a hobby farm, house-sitting, or developing bed and breakfast accommodation. 

Developing a new daily routine

It is important that this is developed over time as you become more accustomed to life beyond full-time work or being a home-parent.  Research in this area suggests that a daily routine enhances longevity and meaningful living.  A retirement routine is very individual and takes some planning and acknowledgement of your own “circadian rhythms”.  Bec offers suggestions for rebuilding our morning routine and creating purposeful evenings.  Penny Pennington Weeks shares her comprehensive retirement routine to encourage us to plan our own “to enjoy a retired life”.

Practising mindfulness for a happy and fulfilling retirement

Throughout her Epic Retirement Book and Course, Bec strongly encourages cultivating  openness, curiosity and reflection – key components of mindfulness practices.  Research and personal experience confirm the multiple benefits of mindfulness that accrue from regular mindfulness practices such as Tai Chi, mindful eating, and engaging with nature.  Mindfulness practice has been shown to enhance happiness, improve health, strengthen our sense of self-efficacy and enable fulfillment by helping us to realise our potential.

Reflection

I identify as a Morning Person, so in retirement I tend to do creative pursuits such as writing in the mornings and the more routine activities in the afternoons or evenings.  As we grow in mindfulness, we can increase our self-awareness, self-compassion, and perception of options.  We can also reduce negativity and self-limiting beliefs to enable us to achieve happiness and fulfillment in retirement.

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Image by Ahmet Yüksek from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Aging and Retirement Planning

Bec Wilson, creator of the Epic Retirement Flagship Course, reminds us that the concept of retirement has changed in recent times.  “Retirement” used to mean leaving your job and work because of your age.  It was often age-related with organisations setting mandatory age limits for full-time employment.  Bec notes that a more modern concept of retirement involves choice – choosing to live off income from investments, superannuation and pensions while undertaking personal exertion in relation to work that you choose to do (whether paid or voluntary).  There is also the choice not to work at all but to pursue your “bucket list”, including travel options or explore hobbies or other recreational/sporting activities.  Bec explores these retirement choices extensively in her book, How to have an Epic Retirement.

Barriers to retirement planning

People are often fearful of retirement planning because they are concerned that they will “run out of money”.  They may be anxious that stopping work will leave them without a purpose and structure to their life.  Many people define themselves by their work role – e.g. a teacher, social worker, lawyer, accountant, or librarian – they are concerned that they will lose their identity if they stop working.  Others are concerned that they  will not be able to enjoy their retirement because they will be afraid to spend money.

One of the biggest barriers to retirement planning is attitudes to aging.  The impact of negative beliefs about aging is pervasive – reaching into  every aspect of our life.  Research shows that negative aging beliefs can have a damaging effect on us, both physically and mentally.  It can severely restrict our perception of options open to us, including retirement planning.  “Ageism” portrayed in the media reinforces negative portrayal of the aging process, highlighting the elements that “decline” without counteracting that with the positive benefits of aging.

In contrast to such reinforced negativity, positive beliefs about aging have numerous benefits including longevity; enhanced knowledge, understanding and wisdom; improved capacity to handle stress; heightened creativity; and improved physical health.  Positive beliefs about aging also free us up to explore the many options available to us in planning our retirement. 

We can develop positive beliefs about aging by increasing our awareness of the pervasive presence of ageism while exploring positive images of aging portrayed in memoirs and stories of exemplars and by interacting with aged people in our family and social network.  With this kind of ammunition we can more readily challenge the assumptions behind negative stereotypes of aging.  We can also begin to explore options for ourselves as we begin to consciously plan for retirement.

One member of the community-based The Epic Retirement Club, Sam Sang,  maintains that we each have “retirement superpowers” – unlimited energy, instant skill mastery, endless travel.  Other members empathise the freedoms that they and other retired people enjoy.  This community sharing of real retirement experiences  contrasts sharply with the pervasive perception that retired people do not have the capacity to contribute to society, are unable to enjoy life and experience severe limitations.

Planning for retirement

Bec is motivated by the desire to help people better understand the choices they have by learning about what supports are available to assist with retirement planning and, in the process, to “figure our what’s really important to you.”.  To this end, she not only provides her Epic Retirement book and Flagship Course but also a 150 page, practical Workbook to “guide you through each module” of the Course.  Bec suggest that you undertake the Course and complete the Workbook with your partner or an “accountability buddy” who  could be a friend.

The Course and Workbook are structured around what Bec calls the Six Pillars of retirement – time, financial confidence, health, happiness and fulfillment and travel.  For each of these pillars, she provides a series of questions and points for discussion, along with quizzes and the space to record our own answers.  For example. Bec provides a basis for calculating longevity to highlight that we often have much more time in retirement than we envisaged based on old data – nowadays, people are looking at 30 or more years in retirement given increased longevity owing to medical breakthroughs, new health and exercise regimes and extensive lifestyle advice.

To assist us to develop financial confidence, she provides the means to calculate whether we have the financial resources to support a comfortable or modest retirement or whether we will be dependent on a Government pension.  A number of exercises in the workbook support this latter source of income.  Bec helps us to complete both the asset test and the income test to enable us to see whether or not we qualify for the Australian Government pension and related financial and health concessions.  For those who are on the borderline of the relevant pension cut-offs, she assists us with suggestions of how we might qualify for the pension in the future.

In relation to health, Bec offers suggestions for ways to improve health outcomes and longevity, including diet, exercise, building a daily routine, managing health risk factors and ensuring you undertake preventative testing at the recommended intervals.  For those of us who experience chronic inflammation, she strongly argues for the need to reduce inflammation by identifying and managing triggers (e.g. foods, environmental toxins and harmful stress).

Her discussion and questions concerning health and happiness are comprehensive and covers aspects such as transitioning to retirement, research about happiness, creating meaning, maintaining and developing relationships, epic pursuits and goals.

In relation to travel, Bec shares the idea that there are potentially three phases of retirement travel: (1) active and independent travel, (2) less active, slower pace travel with the possibility of assisted travel, and (3) travel closer to home (avoiding the rigours of international travel and seeking more comfort).

Reflection

My wife and I are completing the Epic Retirement Course and Workbook together.  We find that this approach is a catalyst for a number of important discussions, including what we will do in retirement; where we want to travel to (we have already been overseas a number of times); how we can create a comfortable retirement; what financial planning we need; what are our assets and overall financial position; how much we will need to live on; where we will like to live in retirement; how we provide for our children; and how to structure our wills.

Bec identifies 5 key stages of retirement: (1) prime time, (2) adjustment, (3) epic retirement, (4) ageing, and (5) frailty.  Even though my wife and I are at different stages of retirement (owing to a 10 year age gap), we are able to use the Epic Retirement Course and Workbook to work towards an agreed, shared retirement future.

Mindfulness practices can help us to develop positive beliefs about aging and contribute to our longevity (we have been married for forty years).  As we grow in mindfulness, we can broaden our retirement options, enhance our creativity and develop new skills relationships and travel options.

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Image by 🌸♡💙♡🌸 Julita 🌸♡💙♡🌸 from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

How to Resolve a Dilemma or Conflicting Polarities as a Leader

Often a leader is faced with resolving a dilemma or deciding between two different options that represent opposite polarities and are supported by different groups of people.  Each of the parties, too, that support opposite perspectives are very ready to highlight the deficiencies of the other party’s perspective and ignore the deficiencies of their own option.  The leader then is confronted with an “either or” situation.  Both options have advantages and disadvantages.

The tendency is for the leader to come down on the side of one option or other because it might appear as the “lesser of two evils”.   But even this solution depends on what priority the leader is assigning to the adverse impacts of the options – for themselves, the opposing groups, for consumers/clients or for the wider community. 

Ginny Whitelaw in her book The Zen Leader suggests that each of us resolves the tension of a dilemma on a very regular basis when we are breathing.  The actions of inhalation and exhalation are polar opposites, and each has advantages and disadvantages.  For example, when we inhale, we can take in oxygen and refresh our blood; when we exhale, we can remove carbon dioxide and relax our body and mind.  Each action – inhale or exhale – when taken to extremes (like holding our breath for too long) can have serious adverse effects on our health and wellbeing.  Neither action is sufficient of itself to sustain life.

Ginny points out that for a leader to lead effectively and in a fearless way, they must move away from “either or” thinking and reframe the issue or problem.  She argues that this involves a flip “from Or to And”.  Ginny suggests that in the tension of a dilemma or opposite polarities lies a creative solution.

How to resolve a dilemma or conflicting polarities

Ginny maintains in her book that the real impediment to moving to the And position (resolving the dilemma), is when a leader or a group becomes locked into one option by overstating the benefits of their solution and highlighting the deficiencies of the opposing solution, while simultaneously underplaying the deficiencies of their own solution and the benefits of the opposing solution.  This occurs frequently in organisational settings when leaders and their managers are engaged in strategic planning involving decisions re product/service offerings, pricing, place of operation, marketing approach or target customers/clients.

Ginny proposes a process she describes as a “paradox map” which has four quadrants that participants can work through to find a solution that encompasses the best of both options, while reducing the downsides of each.  This process entails seeking out the resolution of the tension between opposites by focusing on the And.

My colleague and friend Bob Dick has described a similar process over many years which he calls “option one-and-a-half”.  Bob provides a detailed process for a leader to work with a group to resolve conflicting polarities or opposing positions on an issue or problem.  His group process entails identifying the advantages and disadvantages of each option and then employing a creative group problem solving process and voting to come up with a solution that incorporates the best of each option.

As I was thinking about this challenge of moving “from Or to And”, I encountered a situation where my partner and I were trying to decide how to arrange a meeting with a mutual friend who lived on an island about 45 minutes by sea from our location.  I was strongly of the view that we should take a car across in the car ferry because it was convenient, provided independence and enabled flexibility when we were on the island.   My friend argued that the cost of the car ferry would be exorbitant considering we were only attending a lunch meeting and would not need the flexibility of our own car while on the island. 

After exploring the advantages and disadvantages of each solution we came up with the idea of having our friend travel to a location on the mainland that involved a similar travel time for each of us, reduced the costs for us and fitted in with other reasons our island friend wanted to come to the mainland.  The final solution incorporated the best of both initial, opposing options – reduced cost, flexibility, independence and a bonus of being able to extend an invitation to another mutual friend to join our “catch-up” meeting on the mainland.

Reflection

Being able to flip from an “either-or” position to what Ginny describes as a position of “And“, enables us to resolve dilemmas, reduce conflict and identify creative solutions incorporating the best of opposing options.  Underlying the process involved is the ability to move from a fixed position of “being right” to being able to explore the perspective of the other person or group.  This entails mindful listening and the capacity to be open to alternative perspectives and solutions.  As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, mindfulness practices, reflection and exploration of alternatives, we can develop the necessary self-awareness, self-management and creative capacity to have the openness and curiosity to achieve the personal flexibility required.

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Image by Dirk Wouters from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Understanding Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness

David Treleaven, through his doctoral dissertation and subsequent book, has raised awareness globally about the need for trauma-sensitive mindfulness.  His book, Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing, identifies three myths about mindfulness and trauma, discusses research-based case studies and offers clear options for the way forward.  His work is so critical to the teaching of mindfulness that Brown University has sought to integrate his work and findings into their Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Course and the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute is exploring integration of David’s approach into their Mindful Leadership program.

Trauma and mindfulness

Trauma is described as “the experience of severe psychological distress following any terrible or life-threatening event”.  Many organisations and trainers/consultants/psychologists offer services, strategies and programs for trauma sufferers. Beyond Blue, for example, offers coping strategies and ways that friends and relatives can help someone close to them who is suffering from a traumatic event.

Mindfulness has become acknowledged as an effective way to deal with trauma.  For example, Boyd, Lanius and McKinnon (2018) concluded from a review of the relevant literature that mindfulness-based therapeutic approaches are effective in reducing the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).   They suggested that reduction in shame and self-blame could be key explanations of the efficacy of mindfulness-based approaches to PTSD.

David, however, warns that there are potential difficulties in using a mindfulness approach if practitioners are not sensitive to the interplay between mindfulness practices, beliefs about the universal efficacy of mindfulness and related messaging.  He points out that most people will experience at least one traumatic event in their life. So, in any one room of meditation participants, there is likely to be one or more people who are experiencing trauma in their lives.

David dedicates his life to making people aware of the need for trauma-sensitive mindfulness through his book, videos, podcasts and workshops. He articulates his concerns about a lack of sensitivity to this issue amongst meditation teachers by identifying three “myths” about mindfulness and trauma that can potentially create harm for trauma sufferers.

Three myths about mindfulness and trauma

David’s research with trauma sufferers and practitioners in the field working with people who have experienced trauma, has led him to identify three “myths” (widely held false beliefs) that impede effective and safe use of mindfulness approaches. The myths are powerful determinants of the behaviour of mindfulness teachers:

  • Universality – David describes this myth as “one size fits all”.  However, David’s experience is that for some people who have experienced trauma, meditation can activate trauma stimuli so that the person re-experiences trauma.  As Peter Devine comments, “The nervous system can’t tell the difference between that [reliving the trauma] and the original trauma”.
  • Certainty – this myth relates to the assumption by meditation teachers that they will know when a person has experienced (or is currently experiencing) trauma.  David cites a case of a very experienced meditation teacher who failed to pick up the cues that some of his trainees were trauma sufferers.  He maintains that there are some very subtle non-verbal cues that can signal the existence of trauma, but it requires sensitised awareness to detect them.  He suggests that two major impediments that get in the road of someone openly disclosing their experience of trauma are (1) feelings of shame and (2) compliance (felt need to conform to an authority figure).
  • Neutrality – the myth that breath is always neutral, with no emotive content.  David recounts the experience of one person who was traumatised by a violent parent when a child.  Focusing on his breath “reconnected with the need to hide”, caused him to re-live his trauma and led to increased anxiety.  So, instead of being a calming anchor, mindful breathing acted as a trauma stimulus.

Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: some strategies

David provides considerable detail, explanation and case illustrations of these myths in his book on Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness and in a video presentation on The Truth About Mindfulness and Trauma, which was a promotional webinar for his course for practitioners on recognising trauma, responding to trauma and preventing the re-living of trauma during mindfulness practice.

In the video mentioned above, David suggests a range of strategies that address the limitations and potential damaging effects of the three myths:

  • Develop awareness about possible difficulties for people during mindfulness practices
  • Increase knowledge of, and sensitivity to, the signs of trauma
  • Provide space for people to experience different aspects of mindfulness practice and be ready to make modifications after asking, “What would work for you?”
  • Acknowledge at the outset that some people may have a very different experience to the calming effects of mindfulness meditation
  • Offer the opportunity for participants to approach you privately to have a conversation about their experience
  • Don’t reinforce the “shoulds” of mindfulness experience, e.g. avoid saying, “you should experience calm and peace”
  • Avoid “close and sustained attention to breath” as this may be a stimulus for re-experiencing trauma
  • Offer a range of options for people to practice mindfulness so that they can choose their own anchor for paying attention, e.g. breath, sounds, the sensation of the feet on the floor, feeling of the body on the chair or fingers touching each other.  According to David, Paula Ramirez, a Director of Breathe International, maintains that this choice of options gives participants a sense of agency (the opposite of a loss of control).

As we grow in mindfulness through our own meditation, research and reflection, we can become more sensitive to the needs of people who have suffered (or are suffering) trauma; be better able to respond to their needs; and also learn to adopt strategies that avoid re-traumatising participants in mindfulness training groups.

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Image by Anemone123 from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.